Momentarily, Ronde thought of Lena and Orville playing together as kids: they had meant much to each other: their relationship had pleased almost everyone who knew them: when he radio-phoned General Meade to grant a leave to Orville it was this relationship Ronde was remembering. Meade had met both Lena and Orville when a guest at Ermenonville, in '38.
"Jeannette wants to marry," Orville went on. "I'm not sure how, on faith ... my Jean. Can I tell you that there are no real compensations? It's illusion, self-delusion, or nothing!"
Aunt Therèse came in and embraced them: pale, very sad, she took a rocker beside her husband, a shawl about her shoulders.
"I'm glad you've found each other," she said with childish abruptness. It was comforting to her to have the men together, it eased her loss for the moment; it brought to mind a summer six years ago when there had been a family reunion for her birthday, people from Marseilles, Paris, St. Cloud, Senlis. She saw in Victor's face that reunion: why, they were growing old in Ermenonville!
"It wasn't so long ago that I was religious, I was a girl who secreted her crucifix under her pillow, who loved her rosary. It wasn't fear or superstition. I thought of Christ as my friend: I counted on him ...
"You men count on guns. God's never been real to you; we all know that those who go to war are disregarding thou shall not. I had Christ as my friend in those days..."
Claude had left the room. They were silent. The logs were crackling.
"Lena turned her back on Christ," she added. "There was no god to help her through bad times. She felt that there is no eternal life. The war was her life."
"Youth ... the hunger of youth," said Victor, as though talking to himself. "Her country, the struggle for world freedom ... wasn't it something like that?"
"Perhaps so ... but I know that each of us is poorer for losing faith ... and losing her ... our Lena." She rocked in her rocker, hands clenched on the arms of the chair.